Jane Stillwater is a freelance journalist, war correspondent, blogger, political Cassandra and author of "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," now available on Amazon.com. Her latest motto is "Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world."

Saturday, October 30, 2004

My latest prediction: That Bush will "win" and then be impeached -- if not run out of town on a rail! Someone just asked me what my latest prediction is. "As of today, who do you think will win on Tuesday?"

My prediction is this: George Bush will win. Why? No-brainer! Even as we speak, members of the George Bush fan club who are willing to do ANYTHING to see that their guy wins have been embedded in positions of influence in every electoral board, registrar of voters' office and secretary of state staff in America. I predict that we will see innumerable election dirty tricks -- from the precinct levels on up; not to mention Diebold data manipulations, corporate welfare's huge contributions, Sinclair's misrepresentations, the misleading swift boat/wolf ads, a partisan Supreme Court, etc. Bush will win again but, like in 2000, it will be another coup.

Then what happens? There are two possible scenarios.

1. George Bush will continue doing what he does best -- fouling up, making mistakes, mismanaging and siphoning out government funds to his Swiss bank account (okay okay, I'll be modern -- to his Cayman bank accounts) so badly that he will be impeached by popular demand -- if not run out of town on a rail. Tarring and feathering is a possibility.

2. Americans will continue to put up with the neo-con stumbling, bumbling and greed. As Roz Hill is fond of saying, Americans tend to be like fleas. "You put them in a jar with a lid and they hit their heads on the lid so many times that they stop trying to jump past a certain height." Or words to that effect. Like fleas -- or sheep -- Americans will settle down to accepting the end of the Grand Experiment and the beginning of becoming just another part of the Third World. But if most of America follows Scenario Two, what will the rest of us -- the unlucky ones who are not addicted to Limbaugh and Fox -- what will we do? Move to Ireland or Peru? Take to the streets? Pray a lot? Renew our subscriptions to AOL and cable? WHAT CAN WE DO?

What can I do?

Before Diebold, Florida, et al., Americans went to the polls to express their opinions or let their Congressional representatives do it for them. Slowly but surely -- through new poll laws, voting irregularities, disenfranchisements, "misplaced" registration requests, media firewalls and just plain brainwashing -- the Bush/Rove group have removed that option. For whatever reason, ballots cast at our local precinct no longer seem to count. But REAL Americans will still want to vote. We are used to voting. WE LIKE to vote. And if no other recourse is available to us, we will vote with our feet.

The thing I hate most about Bush and the neo-con group is that they are herding Americans toward the edge of the cliff -- the same way that they have herded people in the Middle East these past years -- where non-violent protests and negotiations are ignored and only violent resistance is paid attention to. I DON'T WANT TO BECOME A GUERRILLA. But that seems to be the only action that the Bush group seems to notice and understand. As people in various countries dealing with Bush have found out the hard way, negotiations and non-violent actions and trips to Washington and the UN are ignored -- and body counts are the only things that neo-cons seem to pay attention to. That's sad. If the Bush group continues to try to reduce our great country to gulags and little bands of guerrillas -- think El Salvador in the 1980s -- they will have a lot of 'splainin' to do. To America, to the world, to the Higher Court in heaven and TO ME. Humph.

That's all the predictions I got time for today. Sorry. Gotta go. I'm busy sewing on my daughter's Halloween costume.

And what am I going to be for Halloween? I think I'll save my urban guerrilla costume for next year. This year I plan to go trick-or-treating as PRESIDENT John Kerry. My bad. I still have hope.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

I want REAL hope: That when gas costs $46 a gallon, America will still shine...The future scares me. I want reassurance.

"Yes, you will always have a charge card and, yes, there will always be a mall." I get that reassurance all the time but that's not the reassurance that I need. I'm not a fool. I know that we can't go on spending the earth's resources and living on peak oil forever. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER IT'S GONE!.

This is the reassurance that I crave: "No matter what happens with regard to your material circumstances, your life will have purpose and meaning." That's what I want to hear! "When peak oil runs out and our 100 years of mindless consuming catches up with us and we are living by candlelight and cooking venison over a wood fire, life will still be IMPORTANT and HOPEFUL and...." That's it! That's what I need!

And there is no one who is telling me that -- except possibly my priest.

The scariest movie ever made is not "Dawn of the Dead" or anything with Freddie Kruger in it. The scariest movie ever made is "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream" wherein the fast-approaching end of oil is documented extensively. Watch it if you dare! But don't watch it alone. You'll have nightmares.

There are big changes coming up in our world -- even as soon as in the next five years -- no matter who gets elected or who gets bombed, blown up or shot. And we must start preparing for them NOW. What will life be like when the inevitable happens and we have to live more realistically?

I want to know what kind of person I will be when I am stripped of all my "things". Will I still be kind and loving and good -- and free?

The Indians of the high plains had nothing but what they could carry from site to site yet they were men and women of courage and meaning.

Before they were overrun by the Communist Chinese, Tibetans lived simply -- even without ELECTRICITY -- yet they are legendary as being one of highest civilizations ever made. Why were they so great? Because they governed their lives by one simple question which they asked themselves constantly -- "If I do thus and so, will it be of the highest benefit to the most sentient beings? What can I do to help those around me?" As a result of their concern and care for others and, despite Communist propaganda to the contrary, pre-invasion Tibet, not Disneyland, was the happiest place on earth.

Pictures of a future world: Us, like mice, scurrying from war to war; vultures searching for prey.

Us, like heroes, building the most important civilization the world has ever known -- constructing it on the building blocks of the glorification of all that is good within the human spirit and soul.

Pictures of a future world: What is REALLY important? In the future, will America shine? We must, like a child who finally outgrows the Terrible Twos, turn to better things. It is time for Americans to stop squabbling with the world, stop childishly playing "cowboys" and finally become adults.

"Bring it on" is no longer an option. We can no longer solve our environmental problems by killing "redskins". And if one more person says to me, "Tell that to Al Qaeda," I too will start to get juvenile! 50 years of US/British failed "cowboy" tactics in the Middle East CREATED Al Qaeda. Duh.

Give me a future that is real. Please.

****
Order the scariest movie ever made: http://www.endofsuburbia.com/From Nigel: On Bush's watch, a staggering amount of American jobs were lost. http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/fourmoreyears_flash.cfmFrom Me: I wrote a book many years ago, entitled "Pictures of a Future World". It was about an Indian tribe who accidentally became immortal and witnessed millennia of man's inhumanity to man -- until Homo Sapiens managed to kill all of themselves off. When I wrote it, I had assumed that it was a novel.

****
It's time for our military to stop acting like bandits holding up the convenience stores of the world for oil.

Press Release: I'm still trying to rescue my daughter's friend "Jordan" from one of those "Behavior Modification" programs out in the Utah desert. Someone else in my same postition has filed a Habeas Corpus writ to try to get another child released from one of these programs on the basis that the child is behing held in involuntary servitude in violation of the 14th Amendment. The hearing is in federal court next week. If the writ is granted, it will mean that non-guardians can have input into whether or not chidren can be carted away to boot camps by their parents with no repercussions from the community. (See Feldman v. Youth Care of Utah et al, Case No.: 2:04-CV-00933PGC) Good Morning America is doing a segment on the Feldman case. Somebody want to do a segment on Jordan too? 100 years after adult involuntary servitude was elimintated, it's time we eliminate child involuntary servitude as well! Oprah! 60 Mintues! Jerry! Do you hear me! Give me a call. E-mail me.From Patrick: Fossil fuel may not require fossils, as the pressure of deep Earth has been found capable of creating hydrocarbons from inorganic matter. http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2004-09-13-3

How low can Republicans stoop in this election: I just heard that Repubs are e-mailing the following ABSOLUTE LIE to their lists:
"Living in a heavily populated military area, we just received word that Kerry's group with Kerry's approval has been calling families of military members serving in Iraq and telling them that their loved one there is dead. They wait a while and then tell them that's what will happen if they vote for Bush." Kerry is NOT doing this!!!! How low can Republicans stoop? Pretty damn low apparently. (Repubs must be really desperate.)From Vee Brown: We've probably already read "A day in the life of Joe Republican" but it is STILL the issue:

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

After work this evening, Joe plans to visit his father at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired and lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

No Child "Left Behind": Code words for a children's cookbook?
Part 1: Recruiting for the "Trib Force"

Remember that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens arrived on Earth and presented our leaders with this glorious plan for the planet entitled "How to Serve Man". Well. In the final scene, "How to Serve Man" turns out to be a COOKBOOK!

For those of you familiar with the "Left Behind" series of books dealing with cult Christian longings for Armageddon, you will immediately recognize no child "Left Behind" as code words too.

According to www.leftbehind.com, the plot of the "Left Behind" series is basically that, "Passengers aboard a Boeing 747 en route to Europe disappear. Instantly. Nothing remains except their rumpled piles of clothes, jewelry, fillings, surgical pins, and the like. All over the world, in a flash, cars are left unmanned. Terror and chaos continues worldwide as the cataclysm unfolds. For those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun."

The book series goes on to describe what happens next. We who are left get stuck in "The Tribulation," a down-and-dirty war where life for the average American begins to resemble Fallugah and our children are brainwashed into fighting to the death for "Jesus".

In the series' children's books, the heroes are told that killing and killing and killing is the only way to worship God. Should they have doubts about this ACTUALLY being the will of a loving Jesus, they are immediately set straight! "Judd, Vicki, Lionel, and Ryan have decisions to make. Will they accept Christ's forgiveness, or will they blame God for abandoning them and taking away their families?" Sounds like a neo-con push-poll, doesn't it.

The future that "born again" George Bush and his friends have in store for us and our children is endless war. Are we fighting for Jesus? Hardly. We are fighting so that rich men like Bush and Cheney can get richer. The whole Jesus con is a trick with smoke and mirrors. It is a cookbook designed for us -- and for our children.

Neo-cons and cult Christians are embracing the idea of boot camps for children in a big way. They appear to think that it's a good idea to have a supply of fresh meat available to the "Trib Force" -- brainwashed new recruits all psyched up for "Endless War".

"What exactly," your next question may be, "are these kiddie boot camps like?" Aside from being training grounds for future cannon fodder, they are prototypes of what life will be like during The Tribulation -- stark and hard places where no love is ever shown. One children's boot camp in Florida run by neo-con "Christians" has been accused of torture, rape and starvation. Images of Abu Ghraib come to mind.

Are these camps toughening our children up for when they miss The Rapture and have to stew in the cauldron of The Tribulation? You bet.

Part 2: Throw-away Children

Another sad thing about the new "send your child off to boot camp" movement is that it is creating a whole new generation of "throw-away children". Tired of being a parent? Buy your way out.

Affluent adults are now sending their children off to the Utah desert or the swamps of Florida as a response to normal everyday-life parent-child situations. Twenty years ago, if Junior broke the crockery, he would have been sent to his room. Now he is tortured and starved instead.

My daughter's friend "Jordan" recently disappeared down the rabbit hole to boot camp. We just found out that he will be there until he turns 18 -- THREE MORE YEARS. What kind of a person will he be when he gets out? One cannot even begin to imagine.

So much for happy teenage years. There will be no football games and proms for these throw-away kids. According to other teen boot camp survivors, "Jordan" will be lucky if he returns with his sanity intact -- not to mention the nightmares.

The new "Throw Away" concept of parenting: If a robust energetic enthusiastic boy is being a bother and the Ritalin isn't working, send him off to boot camp.

When I was a kid, we had girls in our school who would disappear -- allegedly to "visit relatives" for eight or nine months. They would always come back looking older and sadder.

Now it is our boys who disappear and come back looking older and sadder. Whenever a boy re-appears at my daughter's school with that "deer in the headlights" look in his eyes, we know there has been a boot camp involved. And that this child had not been "Left Behind" either.

Part 3: Send a letter to Jesse

Want to help? Please send a letter to a boy stuck in "Wilderness Therapy". His name is Jesse Collins Zipperman and he is at the Aspen Achievement Academy in Loa, Utah. Tell him the gossip, chit-chat about the weather and sign it Aunt or Uncle Your-Name-Here (Be aware that all mail is heavily censored). We just got a letter from Jesse; he is truly miserable and could use some cheering up! Address: Aspen Achievement Academy, Loa, Utah 84747. Or fax it to 435-836-2452 or 435-836-2477. Or e-mail him at admissions@theaspenacademy.com He's somewhere near Zion National Park. Take a vacation. Go try to visit him.

Kids end up in behavior modification programs, boot camps, wilderness camps, and drug rehabs for all kinds of reasons..... For the kids who end up in a harsh, abusive program, it can be the beginning of a life-long battle with nightmares, depression, rage, and thoughts of suicide.

Great new book: Iraq, Inc. A Profitable Occupation.http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100484530 "Pratap Chatterjee takes us into the fast-spinning revolving door between the government officials who attacked Iraq and the corporations who have profited so handsomely from the war. A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting, Iraq, Inc. is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has really gone wrong in Iraq." — Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Nation

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Prediction: When Bush loses there will be MAJOR document shredding at the White House

How do you delete a hard drive? Karl Rove had better find out fast!

He should call up Richard Nixon's secretary and ask her how to erase audiotapes too. "You just accidentally hit the erase button with your knee."

When George Bush becomes a lame duck, the only sound you will hear in the West Wing will be the whir of the document shredding machine.

Lists of people who made illegal campaign contributions? Gone.

E-mail wisecracks about the gullibility of right-wing Christians and bad Jesus jokes? "How does Jesus bite his nails...." Deleted.

Taped conversations from the Oval Office? Plans for dirty tricks? "We gotta have a new Pearl Harbor. How does the autumn of 2001 in New York City sound to you?" And "Let's see -- we could run a smear campaign on Dan or Barbra. Nah, we did that before. How about the Pope? Does he have a wife? We could claim that he's a homo...." And "Did we con those buffoons who actually think that a fetus is a baby or what?" And "Outsourcing? Union-busting? How can we get Americans to work for two dollars an hour?" Two dollars a DAY was going to be their optimum goal.

More juicy tapes for the dust bin: "Put that idiot Sharon on the phone! Tell him to stir up more Arabs! Dammit, we aren't here to pamper rugheads. We are here to sell helicopters!" And "Get me those stupid bitches at Concerned Women of America. I need them to do another hatchet job on mothers."

When George Bush is defeated in November, whole warehouses of "Presidential Papers" will suddenly disappear. That paper mache Thanksgiving turkey that Dubya was planning to serve to the guys in Iraq again this year? Tossed -- along with that old "Mission Accomplished" banner. Even the document proving that Laura Bush's chocolate chip cookie recipe was plagiarized from Betty Crocker will be zapped.

CD-ROMS containing evidence of links between Bush and Al Qaeda? Rumsfeld's prison manual for Abu Ghraib? What really happened in Guantanamo? Cheney's under-the-table pipeline to Halliburton? Which five-star hotel in Houston bin Ladin is hiding in? Who now owns our national forests? The kickback records from Enron? The secret lists of how many GIs were REALLY wounded in Iraq? Who actually forged the Niger yellowcake documents? The true CIA WMD reports? Who really outed Valerie Plame? Who now has their hands on the missing Iraq oil billions? Why there is water in our troops' gasoline? The real air safety report from the Wellstone crash? The home movie of Scalia duck hunting with Cheney right before Bush v. Gore was decided? The Diebold reports?

Eeeuuuu. What's that? "How to simulate a flu vaccine shortage." And "How can we turn Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a man allegedly dead since March 2004, into the next Hallowe'en terrorist bin Ladin?"

After the 2004 election, there will be a myriad of "sucker lists" and "bagmen lists" and "dirty tricks lists" and "dirty laundry lists" to wash and sort and destroy. Then there's good old John Ashcroft and his endless lists of personal dossiers -- one for every man, woman and child in America. That's a hecka lot of shredding!

George and Rummie and Condie and Karl will have a LOT of shredding to do between November and January.

There is something that the GWB gang plans to save and take good care of, however -- the various lists of all their Swiss bank accounts.

****
Somehow our George has gotten the idea in his head that Reagan's torture and death squad policies in El Salvador and Guatamala actually WORKED -- not to mention the Johnson/Nixon torture and death squad policies in Southeast Asia. Bush thinks that we should continue these policies in the Middle East too. Yeah, right. South America -- and Southeast Asia too -- now either hate us or ignore us. And that will be what the Middle East will be like in ten years too -- if we are lucky.

****
Is George Bush the Anti-Christ? Seems to me that God could come up with a better Anti-Christ than him. If he is the Anti-Christ, Dubya is the most shabby and incompetent AC we ever had! Can you imagine an Anti-Christ who had to wear a wire at the debates because he couldn't even remember his lines? We deserve a better Anti-Christ than that! You could buy a better Anti-Christ than that at Wal-Mart. Humph.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

No Child "Left Behind": Code words for a children's cookbook?

Remember that Twilight Zone episode where the aliens arrived on Earth and presented our leaders with this glorious plan for the planet entitled "How to Serve Man". Well. In the final scene, "How to Serve Man" turns out to be a COOKBOOK!

For those of you familiar with the "Left Behind" series of books dealing with cult Christian longings for Armageddon, you will immediately recognize No Child "Left Behind" as code words too.

According to www.leftbehind.com, the plot of the "Left Behind" series is basically that, "Passengers aboard a Boeing 747 en route to Europe disappear. Instantly. Nothing remains except their rumpled piles of clothes, jewelry, fillings, surgical pins, and the like. All over the world, in a flash, cars are left unmanned. Terror and chaos continues worldwide as the cataclysm unfolds. For those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun."

The book series goes on to describe what happens next. We who are left get stuck in "The Tribulation," a down-and-dirty war where life for the average American begins to resemble Fallugah and our children are brainwashed into fighting to the death for "Jesus".

In the series' children's books, the heroes are told that killing and killing and killing is the only way to worship God. Should they have doubts about this ACTUALLY being the will of a loving Jesus, they are immediately set straight! "Judd, Vicki, Lionel, and Ryan have decisions to make. Will they accept Christ's forgiveness, or will they blame God for abandoning them and taking away their families?" Sounds like a neo-con push-poll, doesn't it.

The future that "born again" George Bush and his friends have in store for us and our children is endless war. Are we fighting for Jesus? Hardly. We are fighting so that rich men like Bush and Cheney can get richer. The whole Jesus con is a trick with smoke and mirrors. It is a cookbook designed for us -- and for our children.

So. Now that we have been told why we need to send our kids off to boot camp, what exactly are these boot camps like? They are prototypes of The Tribulation. A boot camp in Florida run by neo-con "Christians" has been accused of torture, rape and starvation. Abu Ghraib comes to mind. Are these camps toughening our children up for when they miss The Rapture and get to stew in the cauldron of The Tribulation? You bet.

Another sad thing about the new "send your child off to boot camp" movement is that affluent adults are now sending their children off to the Utah desert or the swamps of Florida as a response to normal everyday-life parent-child situations. Twenty years ago, if Junior broke the crockery, he would have been sent to his room. Now he is tortured and starved instead.

My daughter's friend "Jordan" recently disappeared down the rabbit hole to boot camp. We just found out that he will be there until he turns 18 -- THREE MORE YEARS. What kind of a person will he be when he gets out? One cannot even begin to imagine.

When I was a kid, we had girls in our school who would disappear, alledgedly to "visit relatives" for six or eight months -- and they would always come back looking older and sadder.

Now it is our boys who disappear and come back looking older and sadder. Whenever a boy re-appears at my daughter's school with that "deer in the headlights" look in his eyes, we know there has been a boot camp involved. And that this child has not been "Left Behind" either.

Kids end up in behavior modification programs, boot camps, wilderness camps, and drug rehabs for all kinds of reasons..... For the kids who end up in a harsh, abusive program, it can be the beginning of a life-long battle with nightmares, depression, rage, and thoughts of suicide.

Great new book: Iraq, Inc. A Profitable Occupation. http://www.sevenstories.com/Book/index.cfm?GCOI=58322100484530 "Pratap Chatterjee takes us into the fast-spinning revolving door between the government officials who attacked Iraq and the corporations who have profited so handsomely from the war. A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting, Iraq, Inc. is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has really gone wrong in Iraq."—Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Nation

Saturday, October 16, 2004

What would Jesus do: Sending missionaries to the red state heathens! "Praise the Lord and pass the information!" Did you know that in the undecided states, only 26 electoral votes are up for grabs -- while the red states supposedly have a lock on 228 votes.

Are we going to let George Bush get away with that? Having almost half of our nation living in heathen darkness, believing un-holy lies and practicing baby-killing? That's just plain un-Christian!

Don't send me to some swing state to persuade undecided voters. Send me to Alabama! Send me to Texas! They need me more. Their eternal souls are in danger. Being a God-fearing Christian, it's the least that I can do.

Send me to Georgia! Send me to Idaho, Wyoming, the Dakotas and Utah! I'll preach fire and brimstone to those heathens. "In the future, if you want to become patriotic Christians, you gotta start honoring Jesus, stop voting for those White House pagans and their drive-by-shooting foreign policies that are endangering our safety -- and jail George Bush for his attacks on our freedom, our liberty, our safety and our Constitution!"

Red state heathens, it's time to step up to the rail and come to Jesus!

What would Jesus do? Does "Thou shalt not kill" sound familiar? And how about "Love thy neighbor" too.

Jesus was the ultimate Brave Man. Definitely braver than you and me. Always remember that Our Lord was brave enough to face down a terrible, painful and lonely death rather than deny his principles and resort to violence and/or dirty tricks. Did you see Jesus in the court of Pilate begging for his life? Did you hear Him wetting His pants and crying, "Oh spare me! Spare me! Kill somebody else!" Or did you see Special Forces op Jesus in his camo toga out murdering civilians in the Roman Green Zone? If He had done that, He would not have been the Son of God. He would have been just one more faceless "Bring it on!" demagogue in an endless historical parade of bullies, pimps and thugs. And we today would be worshiping some panthon of gangster punks instead of Him.

If the red states elect George Bush this year, they also need to think about this: Who will they elect in 2008? Another demagogue just like him? And then another and another -- until finally one of them just calls an end to the election charade altogether. That's just plain SINFUL.

And if Americans are clambering for demagogues NOW, how will they act when there is no more oil? Will we then just descend into barbariosity altogether? Our great-grandparents managed to live good Christian lives without oil -- and without killing babies for it either! America, we need to make some serious choices here. What would Jesus do?

Need more fire and brimstone to persuade you? Here it is! "Vote for that lying baby-killer George Bush again, red state guys, and you will surely go to Hell!" Vote for Kerry-Edwards and you may POSSIBLY stand a chance of redemption.

Sources:

Baby killers? Really? Unfortunately, yes: Knight-Ridder states that between April 5 and September 19, 2004, "According to the statistics, 59 children were killed in Anbar province (which includes the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah) compared with 56 children in Baghdad. The ministry defines children as anyone younger than 12." http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000642386From Tom: "It's like we have Sonny Corleone running the country. If it was Michael Corleone, it wouldn't be so bad. But Sonny?"

From The Bible: You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone... Faith without deeds is dead -- James 2:14-26

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Out of Gas: America needs to start THINKING about what happens next... According to James Howard Kunstler in a new video entitled, "The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream," when the world's oil supply runs out, American suburbs are doomed. Without gas, suburbs will become "the slums of the future."

That's a dreary thought.

Bush is always telling us that Al Qaeda is about to jump our bones.

Now this futurist is telling us that suburbia is doomed.

Where is the good news?

Who in corporate America is telling us stuff like, "We are doing research on alternative energy. Everything is going to be okay."

Who in Congress is telling us, "We are going to stop voting to spend YOUR money on manufacturing yet more useless oil-war machines -- and start voting to use tax payers' money to make oil wars unnecessary."

Who in the Pentagon is saying, "We're tired of being global bandits, holding up the convenience stores of the world for oil. We wanna be the GOOD GUYS for a change."

Who on TV is showing us commercials that say, "Let's give all our children a free college education so that we can think our way out of this swamp." Or "The future is ours if we prioritize what it is that we actually do need and stop buying trash meaninglessly." Or "Let's start using our Yankee ingenuity." Or "When there is no more oil, we will still be okay because we can do this, this and this..."

Who in our pulpits are saying, "Let's stop all this yammering about writing 'thou shalt not kill' on the walls of public buildings and actually go about stopping all this grisly killing-for-oil -- so that our future will be Christ-like."

It's like we are surrounded with Chicken Littles but have no Gandhis, Jeffersons or Einsteins.

What IS going to replace our gas-loving SUVs and soon-to-be-obsolete freeways? We need to start THINKING about this. When I turn on the TV, I want to see stuff like that. Right now the only show that might possibly be dealing with this subject is "Survivor".

All this lack of paying attention needs to change -- and change fast. We have a very short time-frame within which to start making alterations to our costumes if we still plan to keep dancing at the ball.

Bottom line: If you want to make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. According to "The End of Suburbia," our eggs are about to get broken BIGTIME. So let's make sure that, when this happens, we have an omelet pan handy.

From Robert: Iraq faces soaring toll of deadly disease: 13 October 2004: Soaring rates of disease and a crippled health system are posing a new crisis for the people of Iraq, threatening to kill more than have died in the aftermath of the war. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=571593From Tommy: The 1082 U.S. fatalities and the over 7,000 (I would estimate this is a VERY CONSERVATIVE FIGURE) wounded and maimed U.S. miltary are UNACCEPTABLE AND UNFORGIVABLE. WAR CRIMINALS MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. THIS IS A WAR BASED ON A LIE. THIS IS A TOTAL AND COMPLETE DISASTER FOR OUR COUNTRY

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

I just read an article that said all we need is one (1) Congressperson to introduce a bill to impeach George Bush. And boy do we have grounds! Clinton was charged with "Abuse of Process." There's a precedent here! How often has George abused his "process" -- let me count the ways! Ignoring the Constitution comes immediately to mind. Then there's the illegal war on Iraq. That Valerie Plame thing. Faulty WMD intelligence. Commandeering Air Force One for his own political purposes. Using his influence for Enron. Taking money away from vets. Shortchanging Florida hurricane victims. And he probably abused the Lincoln bedroom too!

Call your Congressperson this morning -- even before you go to Starbucks for your mocha latte or go out to milk the cow -- and BEG him or her to introduce articles of impeachment NOW!

Find your Rep's number or e-mail address at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/Rep. Or call MY rep: Barbara Lee: 202-225-2661. Even if your rep is a raving neo-con like Tom Delay, give him or her a call! If our reps get enough calls saying, "Impeach Bush," they may get the hint that Bush needs to go! Rep. John Conyers: 202-225-5126; Rep Henry Waxman:202-225-3976

Monday, October 11, 2004

My "I gave at the office" approach to paying federal income tax

Yesterday the mayor of our fair city spelled it out to us. "The feds have cut funding to the State of California by 21 billion dollars. The state then makes up its losses by having the cities pay. Our city is now heavily in debt. We have to make that money up from somewhere if we are to keep operating."

For every dollar that local taxes have been raised since George Bush took over the Oval Office, let's take that off our federal income tax (perhaps as a contribution to charity -- such as donating to the Billionaires' Club?) And we could give our refund checks to our cities -- the ones who are REALLY providing us with services these days.

When I went to the "bargain" matinee at the movies on Sunday, it cost me seven whole dollars! That's a tax. According to economists, inflation is a tax that benefits the government. We're paying that tax. Let's deduct the difference between our real income in 2000 and our real income now off of our 1040 forms. Why? Because we already gave at the office! And at the grocery store and at the gas pump and at the assessor's office and.... You get the idea.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Doctors in chains: How to escape from the HMO gulag When you think of chain gangs, Parchman Farm comes to mind -- not your local medical center. But let's look at this from a typical American doctor's point of view. "I spent over half a million dollars going to med school," stated Dr. 831590. "I wanted to help people. Now I'm chained to an assembly line that produces a new patient every 15 minutes. Workers at Ford plants in Mexico have an easier job. Have you ever tried to cure anybody in 15 minutes?" That's slave labor!

That's like expecting someone to hit the bulls eye at 50 paces on a moving target the size of an ant! No wonder malpractice insurance costs so much.

Instead of wallowing in the joy of curing patients, doctors come home worried and exhausted. "Every night I just lie there and worry that I probably gave someone the wrong pills." What kind of a life is that? No golf for these guys.

One-third of all the money we spend on health care goes to administrative bureaucrats. One third. "We don't even have auriscopes, stethoscopes and Band Aids," said one Children's Hospital intern, "yet the HMO execs are getting paid outrageous sums."

According to Patch Adams, "Medicine practiced as a business hurts everyone.... Doctors are not mechanics fixing breakdowns but gardeners nurturing growth.... If we operate a hospital where staff is always burnt out, patients are going to be burnt out too."

In the American medical gulag system, doctors are living the hard-knock life and patients have become human bar codes -- while the uninsured have nothing at all. And nobody is getting better except the HMOs and their friends in Congress and the White House.

What to do? I call on every doctor in America to throw off their chains, go on strike (January 1? This would be a great way to start the New Year) and not go back to work until they are once again free to practice real medicine.

Doctors need to start rattling their cages and start remembering that HMOs cannot survive without them. The tail has got to stop wagging the dog.

And, speaking of good medicine, what ever happened to house calls?

Sources:

Patch Adams and the Gesundheit! Institute (where laughter IS the best medicine)
http://www.patchadams.org/home.htm10,000 People in U.S. Work in Forced Labor [Doctors too?]http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092704Z.shtmlFrom Liz regarding not having enough doctors for all the Bush wars: A drafting of medical personnel is going to kill medical care in this country, and will put a crimp in the desire of people to become doctors and nurses unless they are safely past draft age.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

I always thought that the goal of Halliburton's no-bid contracts was to amass vast amounts of wealth for Dick Cheney.

I was wrong.

It's not about the money.

After watching Cheney on TV the other night, I had a big epiphany. "That guy could care less about money. Or even Iraq. Or even -- gulp -- oil." No, Dick Cheney is playing a larger game. He wants power! You could see it in his face.

Halliburton has been systematically fleecing Americans for a reason and it's not to defeat Iraq. "Iraq is a money pit," I suddenly realized, "and every cent that goes there weakens the United States; weakens you and me."

As he debated John Edwards on the future of our country, I could almost read Dick Cheney's mind. He seemed to be thinking, "Forget about those poor stupid Iraqis. Forget about the North Koreans, the Iranians, those stupid cats-paw cannon-fodder Israelis and even Osama what's-his-name. They are merely a means to an end." Dick Cheney's real goal is power. Power over who? (Whom?) Power over the people who REALLY count. Power over you and me.

Why us? Why Americans? Not a clue. Perhaps because it was Americans -- not Iraqis or Afghanis or Palestinians or Sudanese or even Al Qaeda -- who didn't elect Cheney prom king in high school.

Through a combination of George Bush, cult Christians, Republican ostriches, corporate welfare queens, Fox news, outsourcing, the Patriot Act, Diebold and the military, our Dick has finally found the perfect vehicle -- the aces-wild winning hand -- to finally get what he wants:

Power over you and me.

****
Sources:

From Roberto Bellachaio in Paris, France (with Cheney photo!): http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=3645Cheney cartoon from Roger: http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/po/From CLG News: Halliburton at work: Dear Mike, Iraq sucks Michael Moore received a flood of letters and emails from disillusioned and angry American soldiers serving in Iraq. [excerpt] "A Blackwater contractor makes $15,000 [£8,400] a month for doing the same job as my pals and me. I make about $4,000 a month over here. What's up with that? ...Man, there is a huge f*cking scam going on here! There are civilian contractors crawling all over this country. Blackwater, Kellogg Brown & Root, Halliburton, on and on. These contractors are doing everything you can think of from security to catering lunch! We are spending money out the ass for this sh*t, and very few of the projects are going to the Iraqi people. Someone's back is getting scratched here, and it ain't the Iraqis'!"

"In the Shadow of No Towers" by Art SpiegelmanThis dark, troubling and sometimes hilarious 9/11 comic, created in a jumpy city uneasily balanced between Bush and Osama, may be the finest and most personal work of art to emerge from the tragedy.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Ariel Sharon may be a slow learner but our George is learning fast!

One of the cardinal rules of human nature is this: "Punishment ALWAYS leads to resistance." Human beings are hard-wired that way.

According to John Gray's excellent book "Children are from Heaven," if a young child thinks that a punishment is unjust, he or she will resist it -- even to the death. And this eternal truth also applies to grown-ups.

Ariel Sharon is a really slow learner. After all these years, he is STILL unclear on the concept.

KPFA reporter Aaron Glantz describes Sharon's policies in Palestine as "All stick, no carrot". Everyone who has ever raised a child knows that policy sucks eggs. But Ariel Sharon appears to be clueless.

If brutalizing and enslaving human beings was a valid technique of governance, we would have no Child Protective Services. If a child misbehaved, we would simply beat it to death and get another one. And we would all be happily ruled by, say, Genghis Khan the 28th or Adolph Hitler, Jr. What is it about Ariel Sharon? That he doesn't get that?

100 more Israeli tanks just rolled into Gaza. How is that supposed to make Israel safer?

100 new school teachers rolling into Gaza would have worked much better.

George Bush has taken Sharon's woodshed mentality and applied it liberally in Iraq. Bush appears to be a slow learner too. Unfortunately, with over 2,600 attacks on US troops there per month, Bush is learning fast. But what is even more tragic is that Palestinians, tired of spending their every waking hour locked in the woodshed, are learning rapidly too.

It's time to start offering carrots, guys -- and to put those sticks down before you hurt yourselves.

Friday, October 01, 2004

When Dennis Kucinich was running for President last spring, media pundits told us again and again, "He'll never win. He's too short." As if shortness was the measure of one's ability to lead a nation.

All that changed on September 30 as I watched the Presidential debates and realized that GEORGE BUSH IS SHORT TOO! So. It's given me new hope that Dennis Kucinich could become President in 2008!

Don't you just love a good debate? We learn so much about the candidates. However, I had to disagree with my young neighbor who came over to watch the debates with us. "Bush does NOT look like a monkey," I told her -- even after she had directed me to http://www.bushorchimp.com/.

I was also surprised at how intelligently Bush performed without his handlers feeding him scripts.

But the highlight of the debate came when Laura Bush and Theresa Kerry came onstage wearing identical pink outfits. They looked at each other, laughed and gave each other big hugs -- a wonderful example of using diplomacy instead of preemptive strikes!